Part of the Job Description
by jenthetrulysly
Summary: It was quiet except for the soft sounds of rain outside, and Danny could not sleep.


**_Part of the Job Description_**

by jenthetrulysly

**AN** - I'm back! Real life has been insane as I wrap up one part of my life and start another, and I am truly thankful for my lovely readers' patience and understanding. Your PMs of support and encouragement gave me the inspiration I needed to start writing again.

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It was quiet except for the soft sounds of rain outside, and Danny could not sleep. He had tried counting sheep and even counting backwards from five hundred, but nothing had helped. Whilst his body was physically tired, each movement heavy-limbed and slow, his mind was still sparking, still going at a hundred miles an hour and this in turn caused him to shift restlessly in bed, such that his partner stirred. There was a soft huff of protest. He turned to look at the dark hair poking through the top of the sheets.

The moon should have been out in force tonight, but naturally it had gone to hide between the clouds as the sky split open and rain tumbled down. As a result of this, the only light in the room filtered through the flimsy curtains that Danny had not bothered to change since moving in, casting a dull fuzzy silvery glow from the streetlights, casting dark shadows against the wall. He took a few moments to observe the steady rise and fall of breath as the light painted silvery strips over smooth skin, skin that Danny's hands couldn't seem to get enough of, skin that was hot enough to burn under his fingers.

Danny was on edge, and he had had enough of these nights to know that sleep was impossible at this point without some sort of hard alcohol in his system. He'd thought of it as being symptomatic of an adrenaline hangover, but it wasn't, because the days at the office had been slow lately, nothing much to do in the idleness except shoot the breeze.

Taking the greatest care so as to not wake up his bedfellow, Danny slid the sheets away from his torso and swung his legs onto the carpet, savouring the way the soft carpet felt under his toes. He resolutely ignored the slippers they had agreed to use when walking around in their apartment and proceeded to pad out of the bedroom into the living room. He had lived here long enough to be able to navigate the place blindfolded, knew where every sharp edge was and where to avoid putting pressure, unless he wanted a handful of glass. He flicked on the lamp on the corner table, blinking for a few moments as the apartment was flooded with warm orangey light. He walked over to the drinks cabinet to fetch a glass tumbler, before seizing the bottle of whisky that Steve had given him in celebration or other, another award from an ever grateful public official who wanted to have their 15 minutes in the limelight.

Danny poured himself a fat three fingers worth of liquor before going to curl up on his side of the sofa, the tan cushions old and worn, melding seamlessly with the lines of his body. His lip twisted upward in a small smile as he lifted the glass up to his lips to take a sip, shuddering at the burn of the alcohol as it licked his insides, warming him from within, as he let his thoughts roam.

Oh, there was no doubt that Five-O had done a lot of good things for the state of Hawaii. Under Steve's command organized crime plummeted, the dope pushers and crime syndicates dragged out of the rank darkness into the light under Steve's direction, and left to burn and writhe under the full might of the criminal justice system. It was all morally very rewarding work, the very same type of things that they printed on those brochures distributed to young and doe-eyed youth on the cusp of adulthood and responsibility and everything else that came with it.

The alcohol was helping to soothe most of the rough edges in his mind that made the images burn crystal clear and sharp, and he was beginning to feel pleasantly fuzzy as it kicked in. He placed the glass on the glass coffee table and stretched his arm over the backrest of the sofa, as he bent his head back and sighed, his fingers twisting in the well-worn material as a heavy sigh rushed out his lungs as he mulled over these thoughts.

Indeed, Danny had more commendations and awards against his name then what would come in the wildest dreams of most young cadets and rookies over at HPD, who viewed him with a mixture of awe and envy, to be second-in-command of the most elite unit on the Island. However, what the posters and pamphlets and brochures failed to mention was that being at the top, or near enough to the top, was a very lonely place to be.

He didn't like to think of himself as cynical. For a while, he had skirted the edges and almost rolled off into the deep end of skepticism as most of his hope and warm belief in people had been beaten out of him, any sort of semblance of trust in humanity was taken to with a sledgehammer and bludgeoned into pieces by the constant fallibility of the human spirit as life dragged on, as crimes were committed. Danny learned the hard way that for most people, resolve meant nothing when one was staring at death looming in the form of a cocked gun. defiance meant nothing in the climate of threats and actual violence, and redemption was nigh on impossible, a dream to keep many people reaching for the stars. Completely unattainable.

A lot of things meant nothing when it came down to it and this was such a distressing thought as it opened up a riptide of negative emotions in Danny, things which to this day he sometimes still struggled with, which made getting out of bed nearly impossible as the weight on his shoulders was so heavy sometimes that he felt like he was suffocating, unable to breathe under the burdens of responsibility. It was here that he learned that if he didn't take any action, if he didn't try to do something, anything different, he was going to end up in a state of despair, where not even the brightest of metal of gold could tempt him back.

It had gotten to a point where nothing mattered anymore, where he found himself in those life or death situations where a rain of bullets herald the imminent danger of incapacity and death, and he found that he wasn't scared. Despite the mass hysteria that was building around him in these situations, where a second was all that separated life from death, resolution from the middle bit of the problem, he could always be counted on to keep the lid clamped firmly on any escalating panic.

Nobody else seemed to notice his descent into this stage of uncaring numbness. Time ticked by slowly, dragging on as it ever did, until he was lying on the hospital bed again, staring up at the ceiling tiles as the sounds of Steve's anger melted into white noise. It was oddly soothing.

_"__-waited," the lead detective all but snarled, as he paced around the small room, before pausing to glare. If looks could kill, Danny would be on the floor by now, "you should have waited, back up was coming! What were you thinking?"_

Danny had never really seen Steve lose it before, so this was certainly something new. A childish part of him reveled that he was able to reduce the normally calm and collected head of Five-O to a jangled mess of pent up anger. Some part of him even derived pleasure at seeing the other man's worry, because it proved that someone still cared for him, cared enough to holler and yell when he did something stupid that could ultimately end up costing his life. Given his chosen career, it was part of the job description.

**PAU**


End file.
